Should Businesses Like a Facebook Graph Search Built on Likes?

Facebook's Likes are coming into their own with the debut of its new Graph Search. Likes are the power that fuels the network and the businesses that have a presence on it. It's going to be a tricky business to use that power wisely, though, and avoid the temptation to sink to spamming or privacy invasion in the quest for profitability.

So now we know why Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have been so busy recruiting
former Google big brains: They coveted their mastery of algorithms, their sure-footedness in navigating mountains of Web-based data.

The result? Facebook Graph Search, announced Tuesday by Zuckerberg. Those who
were quick to ask for invites will soon get to play with the beta version, and then all
1 billion members will get their crack at using the new feature to dig up content that's
been shared within the world's top social network.

Based on Zuckerberg's presentation and demonstrations by other company
executives, Facebook is putting that poached Google talent to very good use.
Although Graph Search applies only to content within Facebook itself, that's still
a very deep ocean of information: the aforementioned billion-plus members
depositing billions of bits of data about people, places, photos, music, movies, TV
shows, restaurants and retail outlets.

Since the marketing industry is always looking to leverage Facebook's latest feature,
another business-friendly metaphor might be more appropriate: All that information
is a Fort Knox of data for businesses and brands that have been hearing more talk
about "big data" (read: business intelligence) for the past year.

What to Like About Searching Likes

The semantic search interface is intuitive: "Friends who like Coldplay who live in
Seattle" can be input into a newly designed search box, and suddenly you know who
to bum concert tickets from the next time Chris Martin's band comes through town.
In this way, Graph Search puts a white-hot spotlight on social media's longstanding
potential for businesses as the world's biggest recommendation engine powered by
people you trust.

Facebook is also taking advantage of its relationship with Bing as a way to surface
results that aren't found in the network -- a not-so-subtle attempt to wean members from their Google search habits. However, the truly interesting aspect of this
development in regard to the social media industry is how Facebook is giving
marketers and businesses -- large and small -- a way to leverage all those Likes that
have been shared among members.

This development marks a resurgence in Likes as the power that fuels Facebook
and the businesses that have a presence on it. It hasn't been a full year since Chief
Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg spoke at the first Facebook Marketing
Conference, urging advertisers and brands to get past Likes and focus instead on
people and stories; to make their pitches more organic and similar to the status
updates everyone sees in their News Feeds. Yet Likes are now the glue connecting
search queries, and that favorite Mexican restaurant you visit every Friday for
happy hour needs to get busy once again reminding customers to click that big
thumbs-up button at the top of its business Page.

What's Not To Like About Searches Based on Likes

This new, great Like power comes with great responsibility for those marketing
for businesses -- namely to avoid spamming Facebook users in the quest for Graph Search
connections. Whether you are Coca-Cola or Carlotta's Tamale Hut, you'll need to
straddle that line that separates non-intrusive from obnoxious behavior -- incentives,
discounts and game-related activities always help.

The idea is to rise above the
kind of activity that has proved annoying to many Facebook users, such as receiving an
unending stream of "FarmVille" requests from well-meaning friends or being tagged
in embarrassing, potentially job-killing photos that you'd rather not see on a billion-
member global social network.

That last part leads to the privacy issue, one that's been a tug-of-war for Facebook
since it was established in 2004. Zuckerberg tried to allay those fears during
Tuesday's presentation, emphasizing that nothing is being searched that hasn't
already been shared. Still, much depends on what advertisers do with that shared
data, some of which may have been forgotten by those who did the sharing
in the first place.

Members do have a responsibility to go back and use some new
privacy features instituted by Facebook to clean up their profile information. As Graph Search rolls out to all members, though, some tweaks and adjustments may be
needed regarding privacy protection.

Rest assured that all the major privacy advocate groups will be charting Graph
Search's use by marketers and businesses, ready to vote their own "dislike" if they
hate what they see.

Renay San Miguel is the founder of Primomedia, a content marketing service. He has contributed stories and columns to ECT News Network and is a former anchor and technology reporter for CNN, Headline News, CNBC and CBS MarketWatch. San Miguel has also served as a chief content officer in the social media marketing industry.